The 10 meter South Pole telescope

• Published in: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
• Main Authors: Carlstrom, J. E., Ade, Peter A. R., Aird, K. A., Benson, B. A., Bleem, L. E., Busetti, S., Chang, C. L., Chauvin, E., Cho, H.-M., Crawford, T. M., Crites, A. T., Dobbs, M. A., Halverson, N. W., Heimsath, S., Holzapfel, W. L., Hrubes, J. D., Joy, M., Keisler, R., Lanting, T. M., Lee, A. T., Leitch, E. M., Leong, J., Lu, W., Lueker, M., Luong-Van, D., McMahon, J. J., Mehl, J., Meyer, S. S., Mohr, J. J., Montroy, T. E., Padin, S., Plagge, T., Pryke, C., Ruhl, J. E., Schaffer, K. K., Schwan, D., Shirokoff, E., Spieler, H. G., Staniszewski, Z., Stark, A. A., Tucker, Carole, Vanderlinde, K., Vieira, J. D., Williamson, R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2011
• Subjects: QB Astronomy; South Pole; Amundsen-Scott; Amundsen Scott South Pole Station; Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station; Antarc*; Antarctica; South pole
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/15383/; https://doi.org/10.1086/659879

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10 m diameter, wide-field, offset Gregorian telescope with a 966 pixel, multicolor, millimeter-wave, bolometer camera. It is located at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station in Antarctica. The design of the SPT emphasizes careful control of spillover and scattering, to minimize noise and false signals due to ground pickup. The key initial project is a large-area survey at wavelengths of 3, 2, and 1.3 mm, to detect clusters of galaxies via the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect and to measure the small-scale angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The data will be used to characterize the primordial matter power spectrum and to place constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. A second-generation camera will measure the polarization of the CMB, potentially leading to constraints on the neutrino mass and the energy scale of inflation